The NHS Long Term Workforce Plan commits to increase the mental health and learning disability workforce and improve mental health services. The plan sets out to:
Grow the number of NHS staff working in mental health, primary and community care roles by 73 per cent by 2036/37.
Increase the number of training places for mental health nursing by 38 per cent and 46 per cent for learning disability nursing by 2028/29.
By 2031/32, further increase training places for mental health nursing by 93 per cent to over 11,000 places and double training places for learning disability nursing over the same period.
Grow the number of registered nurses training through degree level apprenticeships by 28 per cent by 2031/32. Including 42 per cent of learning disability nurses and 30 per cent of both adult nurses and mental health nurses.
What is mental health and learning disability nursing?
Mental health nursing and learning disability nursing are specialised fields that provide care and support to individuals with mental health issues and learning disabilities. They play a crucial role in delivering patient care in the NHS.
It involves a wide variety of roles working in different health and social care settings, and nurses can be trained as nursing associates, registered nurses and advanced practitioners. These roles include psychiatric and outpatient wards, specialist units within hospitals and community services.
They provide holistic, person-centred care to patients experiencing a range of difficulties, emotional distress, mental illness or a learning disability. They help patients understand their situation and overcome their mental health problems, and build effective relationships with people who use mental health services to help them live independent and fulfilling lives.
More information about specific mental health and learning disability nursing careers can be found on the Health Careers website or the NHS Careers mental health and learning disability nursing web pages.
"I believe that being a mental health nurse is extraordinary and a privilege. I still remember the names and faces of service users who have made themselves vulnerable with me. Sharing intimate stories from their lives to me; a stranger who has met them in their home and on the wards, when they are at their most vulnerable."
Jane Padmore, Executive Director of Quality and Safety (Chief Nurse) at Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust.
In an episode of the Health on the Line podcast, Jane also shares the joy and fulfilment of working for people with a learning disability. She also explores how reimagining the workforce, making better use of the voluntary sector and deepening understanding of the learning disability, autism and neurodiversity can go a long way.
Attracting more people into mental health and learning disability nursing
The Laying Foundations: Attitudes and access to mental health nurse education report, published by Nuffield Trust and commissioned by NHS Employers and the Mental Health Network, explores how employers can attract more people from a broad range of backgrounds to study mental health nursing.
The report highlights strategies to attract and access to mental health nursing education:
- Promote realistic understanding. Ensure a more accurate and realistic portrayal of the mental health nursing role, career options, work settings and the people mental health nurses care for.
- Enhance societal status. Invest in improving the societal status of mental health nursing and challenge stereotypes associated with the role.
- Facilitate positive experience. Provide access to positive personal experiences and exposure to mental health services and staff. This includes sharing best practice through education and work experience.
- University engagement. Encourage universities to actively promote the support and requirements for studying to become a mental health nurse.
- Communication and accessibility. Urgently improve communication regarding the cost-of-living grants across different settings and ensure there is a full range of routes into mental health nursing.
Since the original report, steps towards closing the gap between mental and physical health services have taken place, however many people still cannot access services or face long waits for treatment. Addressing workforce challenges in mental health services will be crucial to improving this situation. This follow up report, commissioned and supported by NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network, looks at the single largest profession within the mental health workforce: nurses. We start by outlining the scale of the mental health nursing workforce and highlight trends in recruitment and retention.
Training and deploying mental health and learning disability nurses
There are currently four main routes to becoming a mental health and learning disability nurse:
- university nursing degree
- post-graduate nursing degree
- nurse degree apprenticeship
- nursing associate apprenticeship top up.
This infographic sets out all the different routes available for organisations to train nurses and any costs to employers.
There is apprenticeship funding available for learning disability nursing for 2023/24. NHS England will be continuing to offer £8,300 per apprentice. The eligible routes include:
- undergraduate learning disability nursing apprenticeship
- postgraduate learning disability nursing apprenticeship
- top up from nursing associate via the registered nurse degree apprenticeship learning disability.
For more information contact NHS England at LDNursingApprenticeships@hee.nhs.uk.
Learning disability nursing continuing professional development (CPD) award programme
A flexible programme of CPD is available for learning disability nurses through the learning disability nursing CPD award. It can be used as both a refresher course for fundamental information and a training plan for advancement to different levels of skill.
The curriculum, which is aligned to the core capabilities framework for supporting people with a learning disability, creates a qualification in specialism for nurses as a pathway for professional growth in their speciality area.
Retaining your mental health and learning disability nurses
NHS England produced the mental health nurse’s handbook, a resource for mental health and learning disability nurses across England and their employers. The handbook offers practical tips on supporting preceptorship programmes and supervision conversations to help organisations retain their highly skilled mental health and learning disability nursing workforce.
NHS England have also published Commitment and Growth: advancing mental health nursing now and for the future, which focuses on identifying the key issues faced by the profession, and offers system-wide recommendations to address them.
NHS England’s healthcare support worker (HCSW) programme encourages trusts to recruit, retain and develop HCSWs in mental health settings. This video explores the day in the life of a HCSW in a mental health setting.
It is vital to create more development opportunities for the mental health and learning disability nursing workforce, to attract more people into the profession and to retain existing staff. This article by the Nursing Times explores how introducing the professional nurse educator (PNE) role can be key to tackling issues in mental health care.
Clinical staff who receive support from PNEs report feeling more secure making decisions, as well as improved confidence and wellbeing. The PNE role offers qualified mental health and learning disability nurses who are interested in education the opportunity to develop their career in the NHS while supporting their colleagues to grow and improve.
This webinar recording is an opportunity to hear from employers who have been using the nursing associate role in community and mental health settings and learn about the value they can bring to these services.
Read this case study by the NHS Confederation’s Mental Health Network. It focuses on Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, a low-secure child and adolescent mental health unit that provides care for young people between the ages of 13 and 18. The case study highlights how the trust has made sure that its staff are trained to provide care for complex mental health needs, and that it provides the best quality training and development of its nursing staff.
